I say it all the time: reading aloud 10 minutes every other day = 30 hours of reading aloud over the span of a year. It’s kind of amazing, really.

And most of us can find an extra 10 minutes in our day, even if it means skipping a load of laundry, not getting on Facebook one more time, or putting the kids to bed 10 minutes later.

But there’s another thing I find really tricky about reading aloud: getting my kids to the table (or the couch) in a timely manner.

I might be able to find an extra 10 minutes for reading aloud, but if it takes them 8 minutes (or 100 years, depending on the child. Ahem.) to join me, what then?

I’ve got a trick—one that has forever changed how long it takes my kids to come for read-aloud time. Now I can say “meet me at the table in two minutes!” and they all come, they all stay, and we get to read-alouds even on our busiest days.

Watch the video here:

(This tip will work for you right away.)